Category Archives: Words and Civilisation

Dark Just read any book or film review. Dark implies deep, complex, fascinating, intelligent, and, therefore, somehow worthy. I tend to think that dark is just dark. It’s not good, it’s not bad. It’s just dark. But, since we’re on … Continue reading →

As I understand it, it is a medical fact that an allergy is often an intolerance to a substance with which your body is already saturated. A kind of overflow. In other words, an allergy is your body’s way of … Continue reading →

All the news headlines in the country, in the past few days, have mentioned what I understand to be the recent publication, by a French magazine – and now, apparently, also an Irish newspaper – of the Duchess of Cambridge … Continue reading →

A friend and I were walking down the street and saw a woman sitting on a doorstep, crying her eyes out. “Don’t get involved,” said my friend, picking up the pace. A few steps further, I let my friend go … Continue reading →

For Part 1, please click here. It had been a long day and a late night awaited so, at about five, I ventured into a Central London Starbucks. “Tall, half-shot, wet latte,” I ordered, using the company’s recognised terminology with … Continue reading →

“Oh, don’t worry,” my friends say about someone I have yet to meet, “he’s very laid-back.” Little do they know that that is when I start worrying. Describe somebody as “laid-back” and I have an inner reaction of tension, irritability … Continue reading →

I have just acquired a new friend or, perhaps I should say, a new incarnation of an old friend. My old one has retired to a well-earned rest, after ten years of inexhaustible patience and loyalty, his jacket a little … Continue reading →